A Year of Stir-Fries - and My Favorite Recipes for 2018

To kick off the New Year, I am sharing my most popular bread recipes, my favorite recipes, as well as my favorite stir-fries. 

Every year, I participate in a group called Wok Wednesdays. 

It is a group of people who virtually get together on Facebook and make the same wok dishes each month. We are currently working our way through Grace Young's book, The Breath of a Wok, after having completed Grace's Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge.

Grace Young also participates in the group, offering prizes for the best stir fry of the month, and generally answering members' questions about method and ingredients. 

We also have a website where Matthew of School of Home maintains the monthly schedule. It's a lot of fun and I've learned a lot! Feel free to request to join. You don't need to be a blogger. In fact, most members aren't bloggers. You just need to get a copy of the book to participate. 

I don't usually post these on my blog because we are discouraged from sharing the recipe. 

Here are the dishes pictured above, left to right, top to bottom:

• Amy Tan's Family's Jiao Zi: We learned how to make our own wrapper dough, fill the wrappers with a delicious cabbage and pork mixture, and then we learned how to steam/fry the dumplings. Here is a post from Grace with the recipe and a video of making the potstickers. 

• Millie Chan's Chili Shrimp: This is a simple and aromatic stir fry - shrimp, bean sauce, sugar, cooking wine, hot peppers and more - and it takes just a few seconds of stir-frying to prepare.

• Bernadette Chan's Stir-Fried Beef and Tofu - in my case, minus the tofu. I just added more beef! I loved the ginger flavor, and the sauce was amazing. I could practically drink it. 

• Chicken with Garlic and Sugar Snap Peas - this is a light dish with a delicious sauce that brings all of the ingredients together. And there's garlic!

• Martin Yan's Mandarin Five-Flavored Boneless Pork Chops - I used thin cut bone-in pork chops, and the resulting pork was very tender. Look at that sauce! I'm definitely making this one again.

• Stir-Fried Chicken and Shallots - This one was delicious and the chicken was so juicy! The flavors of black beans, chopped garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and sugar created a delicious sauce for the chicken and shallots. 

• Shrimp Dumplings Spring Moon - The wrappers for these dumplings are so different from what we are used to. They are made from a combination of wheat starch, tapioca starch, a bit if salt, and vegetable oil. The shrimp filling in these is extraordinary. 

• Cousin Zane's Sichuan Beef - Here's another sauce that I could probably just drink on it's own. It's so rich and flavorful, yet takes no time to put together. Flank steak, rice wine, soy sauce, ginger, ketchup, hoisin sauce, chili bean sauce, chicken broth, bell peppers and scallions all come together perfectly. If you have a copy of Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge, the recipe is also there. 

• Lee Wan Ching's Sizzling Pepper and Salt Shrimp - These shrimp are stir-fried with the shells on to impart more of their briny flavor to the dish. These are simple to make but so delicious. You will have a really hard time sharing. 

Stay tuned for your favorite breads and my favorite recipes: 

Every year, Sarah of Fantastical Sharing of Recipes hosts a round up for her friends to share some of their favorite posts. Today is wild card day! 

Part of my wild card post is sharing about Wok Wednesdays, but I also want to share a few past posts from 2018 too. 

Here are my most popular bread recipes from 2018:

I posted about 42 bread recipes in 2018, and these were your favorites:

1. Pan Blanco Cuencano - Pan Blanco Cuencano is a slightly sweet roll from Ecuador that is light and fluffy. They are naturally pale and beautifully scented with anise, which is infused in the milk in the recipe.
2. Fougasse with Olives and Rosemary - It's a chewy, crusty, rustic bread that is shaped like a leaf originally from Provence. 
3. Irish Batch Bread - You bake four loaves of fluffy on the inside and crusty on the outside bread in one large pan. 
4. Everything Bagel Soft Pretzel Knots - These pretzel knots are sprinkled with everything bagel topping instead of salt. 
5. Seeded Ficelle - These are sort of a cross between a baguette and a breadstick and then coated generously with seeds. 
6. Cuban Bread - The bread is distinguished by the inclusion of lard in the dough as well as a long kneading time. It's delicious. 

Finally, here are my favorite non-bread recipes from 2018. These are the recipes that were just plain jump-up-and-down delicious:

• Cornish-Style Steak Pasties - Little hand pies of beefy deliciousness. 

• Shio Ramen - A lot of work but worth every minute. 

• Kung Pao Shrimp - You will love this way more than take out. 

• Shrimp and Pork Potstickers - I got the bug from Wok Wednesdays and made these for the blog. So delicious. Pork and shrimp belong together. 

• Steamed Bao Buns - These little pillows are perfect for stuffing with spicy meats and veggies. 

• Moqueca - A delicious Brazilian shrimp and fish stew. 

• B.L.T. Salad - This salad, with the elements of a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, was so good. I suspect it's the sherry vinegar in the dressing. 

• Chicken Scaloppine al Limone - Who knew that a lowly cutlet could be so delicious?

• Mexican Street Corn Salad - I've made this salad three times since I posted it. I also took it to work and my colleagues asked for the recipe and also made it. It's so good. 

• Thai-Style Catfish Burgers - These were unexpectedly delicious. They are flavored with ginger, garlic, shallots, chillies, lime, and lots of other goodies. 

• Korean-Style Fried Chicken Wings - These wings are double fried and tossed in a sweet delicious sauce. 

• Poached Cod in Saffron Broth with Spanish-Style Chorizo - This cod in saffron broth with Spanish-style chorizo and potatoes is loaded with delicious flavors. The mild fish and potatoes are balanced with the spicy sausage, and the saffron broth is both gorgeous and delicious.

• Red Pepper Coques - These are a wonderful Catalan-style crunchy flatbread topped with an intensely flavored mixture of red peppers, pine nuts, and sherry vinegar.

• Crispy Shrimp Snack Shack Tacos - If you love crispy tacos, you will love this method. I've since used it for all types of taco fillings. 

• Stir-fry Crispy Orange Beef - So much better than take out. The sauce is fresh and light.

There you have it! My year of stir-fries, your favorite breads, and my favorite recipes of 2018. 

Happy New Year! 

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